Weather delays
A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship would autonomously disembark from the International Space Station on Monday morning and return home, but bad weather on Earth temporarily caused it to stall.
For now, the cargo ship remains attached to the ISS while NASA and SpaceX work on a backup schedule to send it home, Space.com reports. This mission was supposed to indicate the first autonomous disengagement from the ISS, but for now it remains on hold.
Precious cargo
Earlier Dragon cargo ships had to splash in the Pacific Ocean, meaning there was a longer wait between landing and obtaining equipment or scientific experiments in the hands of scientists on Earth. But the dragon currently moored at the ISS could land, according to Florida Space.com, which means that experiments will be better when they reach the laboratory.
Some of these experiments, which study the impact of microgravity on heart cells and how stem cells grow into 3D organs, are extremely sensitive to the impact of gravity. So the sooner they get to the labs at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the better.
Waiting game
But for now, the ship remains moored to the ISS until the bad weather clears over the Atlantic and NASA and SpaceX give the return the chance.
Happy, like Space.com the dragon can stay attached to the ISS twice as long as previous models, so the load should still be just fine.
READ MORE: Bad weather on Earth delays the return of SpaceX Dragon from the space station [Space.com]
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